Saturday, 9 November 2013

The Many Faces of Modern Feminism

A few days ago
Jezelbel.com postedthis listof the reasons female celebrities have given for
their personal disconnection from feminism as an ideology or label. It’s about
as saddening as I expected it would be: the most common reasons are because
they like/love men, because they’d rather identify with the term ‘humanist’,
because they don’t identify with the anger and complaining that they hold as a
defining component of third-wave feminism, and because they don’t like labels.
Far fewer are the women who argue that we no longer have a need for feminism.

These
kinds of responses to the words ‘feminist’ and ‘feminism’ are extremely common
amongst both public figures and everyday people. I used to see them as simple
misunderstandings of the ideology, which I figured most everyone would agree
upon in its most basic form (i.e. the belief that people should be treated
equally irrespective of gender, sex or sexuality). But I feel increasingly that
this is not a result of people misunderstanding the ideas shared by most
feminists, but rather of people witnessing expressions of broad, conflicting
ideas all claiming the label of feminism, and coming to the reasonable
conclusion that feminism is either: a) stupid and unhelpful; or b) too much
hassle to figure out any further. In short, people associate feminism with
man-hating and hypocrisy and anger because the women they’ve seen promoting
feminism do it with a lot of man-hating, hypocrisy and anger.

This
isn’t limited to people who’ve had minimal exposure to feminism, either –
Brooke Magnanti (research scientist, former sex worker and author of the works
which became Secret Diary of a Call Girl
as well as the wonderful nonfiction book The
Sex Myth) stopped calling herself a feminist because many of the feminists
she encountered disliked and disapproved of sex workers. She was faced with
well-regarded, outspoken feminists espousing in their
writing and work that sex workers cannot possibly be happy – because all prostitution
is supposedly a form of female oppression and no self-respecting woman does it
unless there’s something else seriously wrong in her life. These beliefs may be
well meaning, but in practice they become virtually indistinguishable from the
efforts of conservative evangelical organizations to conquer what they perceive
to be the problems of sex work. Both forces fight for the betterment of women,
albeit for some different reasons, but both fail women in that neither
recognizes the need to protect not only a woman’s body but also her right to
make an informed, non-coerced decision to have sex for money.

Of
course there are feminists who do recognize sex work as a valid means of female
empowerment, but so long as there are people who do consider themselves to be
feminists and do not agree on this issue, and others, we have a problem. This
cartoon sums it up rather nicely:

The
comments denounce statements of this nature as ‘not real feminism’, but I feel
like that strays intono true Scotsman territory. Certainly it’s true that some
of the people claiming the label of feminism while still telling women what
they can and can’t do with their bodies or their lives have just failed to
think it all the way through, but I think it’s at least as likely that many of
the feminists who are against prostitution and other things have considered
these problems and have just come to different conclusions about what the
necessary solutions are. I would feel very arrogant telling anyone that they’re
not a ‘real feminist’ because their position on some of these issues is
different to mine.

At
the same time, I don’t really want feminism to be associated with the ideas in
this cartoon. I feel that many of them fit more comfortably with the second
wave feminism of the 60s through 80s, which was concerned primarily with
work-place discrimination, general sexism and stereotypical gender roles, and
sexual violence, and held a more universal stance against sex-work, pornography
and other non-marital forms of sexual activity. I’m pretty firmly pro-people’s
rights to have sex however and whenever they want to, as long as it doesn’t
hurt anyone, and I know a lot (probably a majority) of feminists do agree with
me there.

So,
how do we move forward while acknowledging that third-wave feminists don’t all
agree on rather a lot of major issues? Brooke Magnanti made the decision to
stop calling herself a feminist, and to devote considerable effort to
criticizing some of the feminists whose anti-prostitution theorizing has been lauded
as more valuable than her own lived experiences. Some of the women in the
Jezebel article chose to align themselves with other ideologies, and some
vocally agreed with the major tenets of the movement while still preferring to
avoid the controversy that the term can stir up. That’s all fair enough – it
does get tiresome to have to explain what you actually believe every time you
declare yourself a feminist – but I feel there is more to be gained from
sticking with the movement, valuing its victories and openly criticizing its
flaws, than by abandoning hope altogether. Feminists who support equality and rights for all women - not only those who fit into a narrow, out-dated image of what a woman should be - need to be at least as loud as those who don't. It’s not easy, though.

Part
of the reason I haven’t posted anything in several weeks is that the process of
writing this, which necessarily included exposing myself to the ugliest hypocrisies
of feminism, has been a major downer. Slut-shaming and such have always
depressed me, but lately I’ve noticed myself getting really angry and riled up
in a way that doesn’t inspire eloquence or clever arguments but just, like,
makes me want to squeeze things until they pop. That’s also why I’ve abstained
from writing anything about the Roast Busters so far. I just can’t read any
more about it, it’s making me too agitated.

I
do really enjoy writing this blog most of the time, and I definitely don’t want
to stop, but I think I might want to shy away from anything really hideous or
controversial for a while. I would like to spend a while writing about things
that are just interesting instead of enraging. Topic suggestions are welcome.
Thanks for reading, as always.

1 comment:

"These beliefs may be well meaning, but in practice they become virtually indistinguishable from the efforts of conservative evangelical organizations to conquer what they perceive to be the problems of sex work."

Very good point. Any ideology that claims to protect a minority or otherwise marginalized group, while simultaneously wanting to restrict their freedom, is a poorly constructed ideology.